


Phone Calls

by ozuttly



Category: Kamen Rider Blade
Genre: Angst, Longing, M/M, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-25
Updated: 2016-01-25
Packaged: 2018-05-16 06:06:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5817010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ozuttly/pseuds/ozuttly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It takes ten years for the first phone call to come. Ten years, and Kenzaki doesn’t even say anything, just hangs up right away. Like his absence hadn’t been torturing Hajime for ages ever since he left, like his presence in the first place hadn’t changed his life irrevocably.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Phone Calls

It takes ten years for the first phone call to come. Ten years, and Kenzaki doesn’t even say anything, just hangs up right away. Like his absence hadn’t been torturing Hajime for ages ever since he left, like his presence in the first place hadn’t changed his life irrevocably. 

He disappeared again so easily. It made Hajime want to cry. It made him want to travel the world, hunt Kenzaki down and punch him until he stopped moving, then hug him until he was better again. He was finally starting to cope, and now his emotions were a turbulent mess once again. 

The next phone call, luckily, does not take ten years. It takes two, which is still an unbearably long time, but then, they do have forever, so perhaps it isn’t so bad. Once again, Kenzaki hangs up without saying anything, and when Hajime angrily calls the number back, he finds it leads to a payphone in Taiwan. 

The call rattles him, because everything Kenzaki does rattles him. The other man has a habit of shaking Hajime’s world up starting with the foundation, and even after twelve years, he’s no different. But having a sense of bearing, knowing where Kenzaki is and that he’s alive and (presumably) well helps heal the ache in his heart, if only a little bit.

The next call comes after only six months, and even though Hajime doesn’t know it’s coming, he feels it right as soon as he picks up. He purses his lips, but this time he doesn’t give Kenzaki a chance to run away. 

“Amane-chan graduated from university this spring,” he says, and the other end of the line stays silent. But it’s not dead, which is a start, so he continues even though he feels his heart in his throat. “She’s become very pretty, as an adult. She invited me to the ceremony, and that was all I could think when I saw her on the stage.” He pauses, but there’s still more silence, so he continues. “I never thought that I would see something like that. I never saw the point in such ceremonies before, but… It made me feel proud.”

The silence continues for a moment before the line goes dead. Hajime wants to punch a wall in frustration, but he also feels glad, because he knows that if he had continued, he would have been overcome with emotion, and neither he nor Kenzaki needed that. Still, he stays restless for the rest of the day, and has a difficult time sleeping that night, if only because he’s imagining how Kenzaki might have responded. 

The next call comes after less than a month, and once more Hajime doesn’t give Kenzaki a chance to run away. He talks about how Amane has a new job, how she’s living on her own and has told him that she plans to get married, if only her boyfriend would hurry up and ask her. He talks and talks, an entirely one sided conversation, until once again Kenzaki hangs up without saying a word. 

After that, they’re weekly. Hajime rarely talks about the important things. Instead, he tells stories of how Mutsuki and Tachibana have become regular customers again, about how Mutsuki is a big name business manager now, married to his boss’ daughter. He talks about how Tachibana is still doing his best to protect humanity in his own way, but how he too is growing worn out, and while he himself isn’t considering retirement, those around him are worried for his health. He talks about the flowers that he planted outside the cafe, about how Haruka officially sold it to him with a sad smile, saying that he’s been the one keeping it running lately, so it was only right. 

They pass months like that, with weekly phone calls, and Hajime wonders if maybe they’re even happening at all. Maybe he’s finally lost his sense of self, and he’s imagining the whole thing? It had been ages since he’d last spoken to Amane or Haruka. It had been ages since he’d spoken to anyone except for Kenzaki and his few customers. 

After a year, he breaks, his story falling apart into silence mid-way through. He’s worried that Kenzaki has hung up for a long time, that he’s ruined the one thing he has left to hold onto, but then he hears a quiet, hesitant voice. 

“Hajime?” 

Kenzaki sounds exactly the same as he used to, and Hajime closes his eyes as he leans against the counter he had been wiping. He’s not crying. He’d cried over Kenzaki far too many times to do it again. 

“You finally said something,” he says, and his voice is surprisingly calm. Kenzaki hesitates on the other end of the line, and for a moment Hajime is scared that he spooked him off, but then he speaks again. 

“I didn’t think… I didn’t think it was right,” he says, his voice still quiet, still strangely reserved, and Hajime exhales heavily. 

“You never think,” he shoots back, and Kenzaki finally lets out an indignant noise, and even though they’ve been speaking for months this is the moment that it really sinks in, that this is Kenzaki, that he’s still out there somewhere, and that he still… He still cares. In that pushy, overbearing way of his that doesn’t take other people into account. Hajime huffs out something that’s a little too hollow to be a laugh. 

“I missed your voice,” he admits, and Kenzaki is quiet for a good minute before he responds. 

“I know. I’m sorry.”

The apology does little more than frustrate Hajime, and had it happened fourteen years earlier he probably would have snapped back that sorry didn’t make it better, that Kenzaki was so selfishly selfless that he didn’t think of how much his decisions hurt those around him until it was too late. 

But Hajime has had a long time to think, and the flames of his anger have had a long time to die, leaving nothing but lonlieness and longing in their place. 

“I want to see you,” he admits, and he can hear Kenzaki inhale sharply, but Hajime no longer feels like dancing around the truth. Neither of them say anything for what seems like forever, before Kenzaki says, in a voice so small it’s barely there at all,

“Me too.” 

Hajime looks down at the counter, and it’s only when he notices the droplets that he realizes he is crying. And he’d said he was finished shedding tears over this guy. 

“I’ll stop, if you want me too,” Kenzaki says again, and Hajime bites his lip, bringing his hand up to his eyes to wipe away the tears that are quickly gathering there. 

“No,” he replies, hoping that his voice is more level and stable to Kenzaki’s ears than his own. “Please… call again.” 

He expects that to be the end of it, and for Kenzaki to hang up again, and possibly never call for another ten or twenty years or more, but then he hears a faint ‘I will’ before the line goes dead.

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place post drama-cd, and was written for a prompt on tumblr of 'things you said over the phone'. But then, it's a pretty self contained fic, so even if you haven't listened to the drama cd/read the transcripts (which you should if you are like me and love dying & being dead) it's fairly self explanatory.


End file.
